In the past year or so we’ve seen some upsetting changes in how mobile data is priced, and more importantly capped. New AT&T customers are limited to an insulting 2GB/month, while Verizon users now operate within 5 and 10GB caps, with quite the pricetag to follow. T-Mobile “soft caps” at 5GB, and Sprint charges and extra $10/month for their WiMax service. Official statements from carriers say that the bandwidth hogs are only a small percentage of their customers, and that everyone else has no problem staying under their limit. Is that really true? Am I the only weirdo using Slacker Radio for 8 hours a day at work, plus my social networking addictions and whatever game I am playing that week? A slow day for me is about 6GB of data. Granted much of that is on WiFi, but am I really one of a few?

According to a recent study being reported in Reuters, I’m not even close to being alone. In fact, it seems these caps are really just a way to curb browsing until they can deal with and even bigger problem, being that the networks are actually being overworked.

Fearful of losing customers, only a few operators have publicly admitted to the problem of keeping pace with data traffic, but the majority is experiencing difficulties. Smartphone subscriptions are rising and so too is subscriber appetite for mobile data. It’s a trend that’s set to continue.

The study also shows that the OS responsible for the most consumption is Android. The explosive growth that every network across the world has seen from Android has brought with it users who are hungry to make their smartphones do things. Things like uploading pictures and video, watching movie trailers or listening to music. The growth has been so rapid that most carriers have been scrambling to make sure the networks arent being choked by all of this new use. There’s no expectation for this growth to do anything but continue, with new networks and bigger, faster, hungrier devices enter the market.

Will carriers get ahead of the curve, and be able to deliver the kind of network that is required to enjoy our smartphone? As our phones begin to require more and more data to do things, will we need to monitor our usage to make sure we don’t get that big bill? Doesn’t that feel like we are going backwards a little? I haven’t done that since dial-up! With little to go on regarding the state of the networks, or what they plan to do to fix the problem, I am very curious to see what the state of the network will be in, say, a year or so. Once LTE is in full swing in major areas, and HSPA+ and Wimax have been upgraded, will it be the push needed to keep ahead of the curve?